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1
Darzi, Ali. "On the vP Analysis of Persian Finite Control Constructions." Linguistic Inquiry 39, no. 1 (January 2008): 103–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/ling.2008.39.1.103.
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Ghomeshi (2001) proposes an account of Persian subject control constructions in terms of a reduced vP complement to the control verb, following a proposal made by Wurmbrand (2001). Faced with the fact that the complement of the control verb is headed by what has been treated in the linguistic literature on Persian as the complementizer ke ‘that’, she suggests that ke, in this construction, is a clitic hosted by the matrix control verb. However, closer examination of the claimed “restructuring” construction, the distribution of temporal adverbials, and ke-cliticization in Persian militates against such a proposal.
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Kim, Hyunwoo, Gyu-Ho Shin, and Haerim Hwang. "INTEGRATION OF VERBAL AND CONSTRUCTIONAL INFORMATION IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE PROCESSING OF ENGLISH DATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 42, no. 4 (March 18, 2020): 825–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263119000743.
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AbstractThis study investigated the effects of construction types on Korean-L1 English-L2 learners’ verb–construction integration in online processing by presenting the ditransitive and prepositional dative constructions and manipulating the verb’s association strength within these constructions. Results of a self-paced reading experiment showed that the L2 group spent longer times in the verb–construction integration in the postverbal complement region when processing the ditransitive construction, which is less canonical and highly avoided in the learners’ L1, than when processing the prepositional dative construction, which is more canonical and shares similar structural features with the L1 counterpart. In the following spillover region, L2 learners showed faster reading times as proficiency increased when the verb was strongly associated with the prepositional dative construction. Our findings expand the scope of current models on L2 sentence processing by suggesting that construction types and L2 proficiency may affect the L2 integration of verbal and constructional information.
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Azazil, Lina. "Frequency effects in the L2 acquisition of the catenative verb construction – evidence from experimental and corpus data." Cognitive Linguistics 31, no. 3 (August 27, 2020): 417–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2018-0139.
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AbstractThis paper investigates frequency effects in the L2 acquisition of the catenative verb construction by German learners of English from a usage-based perspective by presenting findings from two experimental studies and a complementary corpus study. It was examined if and to what extent the frequency of the verb in the catenative verb construction affects the choice of the target-like complement type and if the catenative verb construction with a to-infinitive complement, which is highly frequent in English, is more accurately acquired and entrenched than the less frequent variant with an -ing complement. In all three studies, the more frequent construction with a to-infinitive yielded higher numbers of target-like complement choices. Furthermore, it was shown that the verb’s faithfulness to the construction made a significant prediction of a target-like complement preference. It is argued that a higher faithfulness promotes a target-like entrenchment of the construction and motivates a taxonomic generalisation across related exemplars. Furthermore, the results provide support for the idea that the mental representation of language is comprised of item-specific as well as more abstract schema knowledge, where frequency determines the specificity with which the construction is entrenched.
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Sawyer, Joan. "Bifurcating the verb particle construction." Annual Review of Language Acquisition 1 (October 19, 2001): 119–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/arla.1.04saw.
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In the literature, John threw the ball up and The baby threw his dinner up have both been treated as members of the set of verb particle constructions (VPC). Syntactic evidence from action nominalizations, insertion of degree adverbials, contrastive stress, and gapped constructions (Fraser, 1976) suggests that the VPC must be bifurcated into two classes: a verb adverb construction (VAC) containing a verb, a complement, and an adverb and a VPC with a verb, complement, and a particle. Literature on the acquisition of the VPC has not taken this distinction into account. This article focuses on the acquisition of the VAC. The patterning on syntactic tests is a result of the fact that adverbs are predicators and particles are not. Additional syntactic tests (initial coordination of adverbs and adverbs+PPs and placing locative adverbs in argument positions) suggest that adverbs (not particles) are phrasal constituents: the adverb takes the apparent object as its subject. The bifurcation of the VPC and the suggested structure are supported by evidence from child language acquisition. Children treat the two constructions differently from the earliest stages. Crucially, the overwhelming error (79%) in VAC use is dropping the grammatical object. The timing of this error corresponds to that of subject drop in the null subject stage.
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Shi, Ziqiang. "The grammaticalization of the particle le in Mandarin Chinese." Language Variation and Change 1, no. 1 (March 1989): 99–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954394500000132.
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ABSTRACTThis article investigates the grammaticalization process of liao as a main verb in 10th-century vernacular texts to le as an aspectual particle in modern Chinese. I propose that two processes are involved. First, with the “resultative construction” coming into existence in the language, some instances of liao were reanalyzed as the phase complement of the new morphological construction. Second, other instances of the verb began to lose their verbness by taking sentential subjects and occurring in temporal clauses only. These processes gave rise to the positional change of liao from after the complement of the verb to before the complement of the verb of le.
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Ogata, Kozué. "L’analyse des constructions du verbe venir avec l’infinitif." Lingvisticæ Investigationes. International Journal of Linguistics and Language Resources 26, no. 2 (July 30, 2004): 297–309. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/li.26.2.09oga.
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Summary The object of this paper is to explore the constructions of the French verb venir with a infinitival complement, through the analysis of a large corpus. We conclude that differences between verbs and auxiliaries are a matter of degree. Contrary to the cases of the movement verb venir (Table 2 in M. Gross, 1975, ex. Pierre est venu voir Marie), the subject, in some constructions of «venir + infinitive» is an inanimate noun. We propose to distinguish, among the constructions mentioned above, the aspectual use of venir (ex. Cet incident est venu compliquer encore la question). This use of venir is to be analyzed as an intermediate state between movement verbs and auxiliaries. In this aspectual construction, whose subject can be caracterized as an abstract noun, the verb venir does not take a locative complement, contrary to any other constructions of «venir + infinitive» (with the exception of the auxiliary use venir de). Such aspectual constructions do not exist with the verb aller, the counterpart deictic verb of venir. If venir in aspectual use is on the way to becoming an auxiliary, aller without this use can be considered as more advanced in the axe of auxiliarity.
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Law, Paul. "A Note on the Serial Verb Construction in Chinese." Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 25, no. 2 (1996): 199–233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/19606028-90000052.
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The paper considers two superficially very similar constructions with two verbs in Chinese, and suggests a syntactic account for their different properties with respect to word-order, placement and scope of adverbs, and extraction. Specifically, it proposes to relate the cluster of properties of having alternative word-orders, the positioning and non-ambiguous construal of adverbs, as well as syntactic extraction of the object of the second verb to a structure in which the first verb takes as complement a VP headed by the second verb, and the lack of these properties to a structure in which the VP headed by the first verb is an adjunct to the VP headed by the second verb.
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Boneh, Nora. "Pseudo-grammaticalization: The anatomy of "come" in Modern Hebrew pseudo-coordination constructions." Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 5, no. 2 (June 9, 2020): 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v5i2.4791.
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The paper examines the pseudo-coordination construction featuring the verb come preceding a lexical verb in Modern Hebrew, and shows that this is a mono-clausal mono-eventive construction, which did not emerge via a process of grammaticalization. That is, there is no tightening of internal dependencies between parts of the construction (Haspelmath 2004), nor evidence of a lexical unit starting to assume grammatical functions (Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991). I go on to argue that, in this particular construction, the verb come is a “lexical restructuring verb” (Wurmbrand 2004, 2014), whose lexical properties do not differ from those of ‘simple’ change-of-location uses of come in that both feature a deictic meaning component. Particular attention will be paid to what looks like the absence of a motion component, suggesting that even if simple come selects for a prepositional complement, it does not necessarily encode a motion component, and therefore the absence of the PP, in a complex verb construction is not tied to loss of motion, but merely to a change in the type of complement. The current account provides substance to claims stressing a metaphorical relation between the two occurrences of come, since it points to the close similarities in the lexical-pragmatic properties of this lexeme in its two environments of use, and locates the difference between them in the choice of complement that produces the effect of transfer from the location realm to a more abstract one characteristic of metaphoric meanings.
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Dixon, R. M. W. "Comparative constructions." Studies in Language 32, no. 4 (September 12, 2008): 787–817. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sl.32.4.02dix.
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A typology of comparative constructions is presented, with major attention to the prototypical scheme in which two participants are compared in terms of the degree of some gradable property associated with them (as in John is more handsome than Felix). In a mono-clausal comparative construction, the Parameter (which is modified by the Index of comparison) may be copula complement, head of an intransitive predicate, or a verb within a serial verb construction. There are also bi-clausal comparative constructions, and — for languages with no comparative construction per se — comparative strategies. A non-prototypical scheme involves the comparison of two properties in relation to one participant (as in John is more loyal than intelligent). There is also brief discussion of directions of origin, diffusion and spread, and non-linguistic correlations.
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Koller, Bernhard. "Hittite pai- ‘come’ and uwa- ‘go’ as Restructuring Verbs." Proto-Indo-European Syntax and its Development 3, no. 1 (August 2, 2013): 77–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jhl.3.1.05kol.
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The present article provides a new syntactic analysis of the Hittite phraseological construction involving the verbs pai- ‘come’ or uwa- ‘go’ and a second finite verb. Most approaches have treated the construction as monoclausal in terms of verb serialization (Garrett 1990). This study will take a different approach, arguing that pai- and uwa- select a phrasal complement. The features that apparently set the construction apart from other cases of embedding in Hittite will be explained as effects of Restructuring (Rizzi 1982), a phenomenon Hittite also exhibits outside of the construction in question. It will further be argued that uwa- functions as a raising verb while pai- functions as a control verb, accounting for the differences in syntactic behavior between the two.
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Ambridge, Ben. "Island constraints and overgeneralization in language acquisition." Cognitive Linguistics 26, no. 2 (May 1, 2015): 361–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2014-0102.
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AbstractAmbridge and Goldberg (2008) found that long distance dependency (LDD) questions (e.g., Who did she mumble that she saw?) do not seem to be formed by analogy with similar, more frequent sentences of the same type (e.g., What do you think X?; What did he say X?), but, rather, that such questions are acceptable to the extent that the main verb backgrounds the complement clause (e.g., say>mumble). Kalyan (2012) argued that this finding is compatible with a similarity-based account, provided that similarity between the verb and say/think is defined as similarity in the extent to which the verb backgrounds the complement clause. In the present article, I argue that Kalyan (2012) is correct, and that this phenomenon can be seen as an instance of a broader phenomenon whereby the fit between the properties of a particular item (e.g., a verb) and those of a particular construction slot (e.g., the VERB slot in the LDD question construction) is the primary determinant of the degree of (un)grammaticality of a possible generalization.
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Nakamura, Takuya. "Sur les arguments sémantiques du verbe expliquer et leur réalisation syntaxique." Actes du «27e colloque international sur le lexique et la grammaire» (L'Aquila, 10-13 septembre 2008). Première partie 32, no. 2 (December 15, 2009): 187–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/li.32.2.03nak.
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In this preliminary descriptive research, taking one French verb (expliquer), we explore syntactic possibilities of argument realization. For this verb, at least four types of syntactic constructions are specified for a fixed set of semantic arguments. When the direct object is realized as a NP (and not as a bare Que P) assuming the role of “object” of explanation, it is observed that the subject can vary between the “agent” and “explanation” roles, in correlation with the change of the origin of “explanation”. This type of difference is to be considered a change of diathesis of the same verb. An agentive construction with a complement clause object happens to be a marginal one from the point of view of argument realization, functioning accidentally as a variant of a sentence with verbs of saying. This type of complement clause is a bare Que P in the sense that it does not manifest an alternation with a Que P headed by le fait.
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Idris, Hatmi. "Kalimat dengan Reduplikasi Verba." Paradigma, Jurnal Kajian Budaya 2, no. 2 (February 15, 2016): 193. http://dx.doi.org/10.17510/paradigma.v2i2.27.
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<p>When complement and object appears all together in one sentence, some verbs can be reduplicated, can not be reduplicated, or can be both reduplicated or not be reduplicated. Reduplicated verb’s example: Ta jiao zhongwen jiao le liang ge xiaoshi ‘He has been teaching Mandarin Chinese for two hours’. Verb can or can not be reduplicated depends on the complement types, the verb meaning and the object charactheristic. This paper will analyze this construction semantically, syntactically, and pragmatically.</p>
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Huang, C. T. James, and Na Liu. "A new passive form in Mandarin." International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 1, no. 1 (September 5, 2014): 1–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.1.1.01hua.
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This paper discusses the syntax, semantics and historical source of the new bèi XX construction in Mandarin from a cross-linguistic perspective. We argue that bèi XX is not a special construction that involves the passivization of intransitive verbs. What is passivized in it is not XX itself but a null light verb with the elementary semantics of a causative, putative or activity predicate that takes XX as its complement or adjunct. Such null light verb constructions are abundant in Old Chinese and English, though often not in passive form. Different from them, the bèi XX construction does not have a grammatical active form. We attribute this difference to the difference between synthetic and analytic languages, and account for it by a parameter in derivational timing. The appearance of the bèi XX construction marks Modern Chinese as being at the early stage of a new cycle of change. The analysis of the bèi XX construction as proposed capitalizes on the role of light verb syntax as being the real essence of grammar, and lends important support to the non-projectionist theories of syntax-lexicon mapping such as Distributed Morphology.
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Rawoens, Gudrun, and Thomas Egan. "Distinguishing causative and permissive readings of the Swedish verb låta." Functions of Language 20, no. 1 (May 13, 2013): 64–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/fol.20.1.03raw.
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In this paper an account is given of the semantics of the Present-day Swedish verb låta ‘let’ in constructions with an infinitival complement. It is generally assumed that the verb låta in this construction type can encode either causation or permission. From a synchronic perspective, the relationship between the two meanings has been described by some scholars as inclusive, whereas others have adduced possible criteria for distinguishing between them. Using corpus data, it is shown that the two semantic categories can be disentangled by means of a number of syntactic and semantic criteria, the most important of which relates to the semantic features of the central arguments in the sequence. Other criteria have to do with the occurrence of an object in the matrix clause, the Aktionsart of the complement predicate and the various degrees of autonomy of the object. The outcome of the empirical study reveals that the two constructions constitute comparably substantial categories in Present-day Swedish.
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BERLAGE, EVA. "At the interface of grammaticalisation and lexicalisation: the case of take prisoner." English Language and Linguistics 16, no. 1 (February 17, 2012): 35–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s136067431100027x.
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Brinton & Traugott (2005) and Brinton (2008) have suggested that light verb constructions of the type take a look (at) are instances of grammaticalisation. This article shows that this is because the emphasis has been on the verb take. Exploring the light verb construction take prisoner, we see that one and the same construction involves both lexicalisation and grammaticalisation processes. For grammaticalisation, the focus will be on the semantic bleaching of take and the productivity of the pattern take + NP. For the lexicalisation of the construction, we will focus on the increasing fixedness of the collocation take prisoner, evident from the decreasing acceptability of the pattern make prisoner, and on the decategorialisation of the original NP prisoner, which is manifested in the loss of plural -s inflection in prisoner. The article further investigates the decategorialisation of prisoner, revealing that the word order of prisoner(s) relative to its complement NP (e.g. take the men prisoner(s) vs take prisoner(s) the men) has a considerable effect on the speed of plural s-deletion.
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Mikulskas, Rolandas. "Paths of grammaticalization of the Lithuanian copula VIRSTI ‘turn into’: The case of the inclusive copular constructions." Lietuvių kalba, no. 13 (December 20, 2019): 1–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/lk.2019.22491.
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In this article I aim to establish source constructions for the inclusive copular construction with the verb virsti ‘turn into’ and to discuss how this once locomotional verb eventually became a copula with an aspectual function in the sentences profiling change events. The research is conducted on the base of data provided by the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. As I argued in Mikulskas (2018), the copular construction with this verb along with other copular constructions featuring verbs with similar meaning, such as tapti ‘become’, darytis/pasidaryti ‘become’ (lit. ‘make oneself’) and, formerly, stotis/pastoti ‘become’ (lit. ‘stand up’) express the ingressive aspect of the change event (mainly in the Simple Past and Future tenses). Copular constructions with these verbs may thus be seen as different instantiations of a more abstract ingressive-aspect-expressing construction. While in some contexts these copulas can compete with each other and be used interchangeably, in others their semantic distribution differs. One can reasonably suggest that the copulas under discussion have more or less divided among them the semantic space of aspectual expression according to the semantic and aspectual properties they have inherited from their source constructions. That is why it is so important to trace the source constructions of the copular constructions mentioned above. As is often the case in languages, words retaining their original meanings are still in active usage along with their grammaticalized forms. If this is the case, source constructions are not difficult to detect. The verb virsti (and its prefixed forms) is still widely used in Lithuanian, originally designating the locomotional event of the tumbling down of some vertical object. Thus, locomotional constructions with the verb virsti can be reasonably thought of as the main source of corresponding copular constructions designating a change event. More specifically, the inclusive copular constructions evolved from the locomotional ones through the conceptual metaphor enter a state is moving to a place. Importantly, after a locomotional construction has been reanalysed into a copular one, the latter often preserves formal properties of the former. For example, the starting point of a change event, if expressed in the copular construction with the verb virsti, is coded by the PP [iš NPgen], the same as for the Source participant in the locomotional schema, and the predicative complement of the copular construction after reanalysis often retains the coding of the Goal participant in that schema (i. e. it is coded by PP [į NPacc]). Emerging grammatical construction can benefit not from one but from several sources. In other words, there can be multiple source constructions (Petré 2012). This insight is based on the well-known linguistic fact that the same lexical item, especially a verb, often participates in several different grammatical constructions, and the same construction may attract different verbal lexemes. Copular constructions usually appear in the grammatical context of the locative, existential, possessive or the periphrastic perfect constructions (Mikulskas 2009, 113-141). Technically, this grammatical context surrounding copular constructions may be defined as a network of constructions defined by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1958) principle of family resemblance. In the case under discussion, even synchronically, relations of motivation, or asymmetric inheritance links (Goldberg 1995, 72), can easily be posited not only between locomotional constructions with the verb virsti ‘tumble down’ and the corresponding copular constructions, but also between existential constructions with this verb designating events of manifestation, occurrence, befalling and the copular constructions. More specifically, the inheritance links between source constructions and corresponding copular constructions may be defined as various kinds of metaphorical extension. The fact that existential constructions with the verb virsti partake in the formation of inclusive copular constructions with this verb is not accidental, as an existential assertion is always part of any identity statement (Mikulskas 2017, 70-71; Mikulskas 2018, 7). It must also be noticed that existential constructions with the verb virsti are genetically connected to the locomotional constructions with this verb. In fact, certain locomotional events easily acquire an existential interpretation. The crucial point in the evolution of the copular construction under discussion from the two source constructions is the establishment of a so-called subject alternation (Lenartaitė 2011, 129-162) in the domain. This phenomenon can be viewed from two perspectives. First, one may suggest that the schema inherited by the copular construction from its locomotional counterpart becomes a conceptual frame within which there is a space for an existential interpretation of essentially the same scene. In other words, the existential construction and its copular counterpart profile different episodes of the same locomotional schema: in the first construction the Source participant, expressed by the PP [iš + NPGEN]), is focused, but in the second the nominal of this participant is selected as the subject and the subject of the first, existential, construction becomes a part of the copular complement, expressed by the PP [į + NPACC] which formally corresponds to the Goal participant in the schema. From these alternating constructions one can also see that the existential assertion is a part of the more complex statement of identity implying the cognitive operation of comparison in which a newly emerged entity, selected there in the guise of a class representative, in fact plays the role of a standard of comparison. Alternatively, one may suggest that conditions for the alternative subject selection and the ensuing copular construction are formed when the Source participant of the existential construction loses its locational nature and can be interpreted as an individual or a member of some class (which further undergoes transformation into another entity). Finally, the establishment of a subject alternation in existential vs. copular constructions in language may be understood as the actualization of reanalysis (see Barđdal & Gildea 2015, 7 and literature) of the locomotional constructions into copular ones.
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Yang, Barry Chung-Yu. "Decomposing polysemy." International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 3, no. 1 (June 7, 2016): 132–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.3.1.05yan.
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The ka-construction in Taiwan Southern Min is well-known for its polysemy. This study argues that with evidence from extra-argumentality, ka-NP position, thematic relationship, passivization, over-generalization, and dialectal difference, ka should at least be categorized into three different types, i.e., light verb, applicative, and preposition, instead of a uniform one. The first type involves the disposal patient/theme and the goal/source constructions where ka is a light verb taking a reduced VP complement. The second one applies to the benefactive/adversative construction where ka is a high applicative head mediating the relation between the ka-NP and a VoiceP. The third one accounts for the non-gapped dative construction where ka is a preposition heading a PP that modifies a VP. By so doing, the polysemy is simply an interplay between different types of ka and their corresponding syntactic structures.
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Li, Wenchao. "Multi-verb constructions in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese." Asia-Pacific Language Variation 4, no. 1 (September 17, 2018): 103–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/aplv.16013.li.
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Abstract Multiple verb constructions have been studied intensively in Chinese. However, given the typological differences between the Indo-European languages and Chinese, it is no surprise that the application of a ‘Western’ notion, namely ‘serial verb construction’ (SVC), has caused much debate. This study provides a working definition of ‘SVC’ in Old Chinese and then turns to diachronic issues, for example, the combinatorial possibilities of multiple verbs in Old Chinese, pre-Middle Chinese, and Middle Chinese, clarifying which kind of complex constructions may be regarded as verb serialising and which as verb compounding. With this in place, the study approaches an understanding of the evolution of multiple verb formations in Chinese. The finding reveals that multiple verbs in Old Chinese are combined via verb serialisation. Six combinatorial possibilities are confirmed: (a) unergative V + unergative V; (b) transitive V + unaccusative V; (c) unaccusative V + unaccusative V (change of state); (d) unergative V + unaccusative V; (e) transitive V + transitive V; (f) unaccusative V + unaccusative V (motion). These can be further classified into two groups: Group I: (a)–(d) are successive SVCs; Group II: (e)–(f) are coordinate SVCs. In pre-Middle Chinese, there are signs of verb compounding. The occurrence of disyllabic word roots in the Early Han Dynasty as well as (de)grammaticalisation may be responsible for this. In Middle Chinese, the grammaticalisation of transitive change-of-state verbs, and the degrammaticalisation of motion verbs, led to three different lexical categories: (a) partial intransitive change-of-state verbs turned into resultative complements (resulting in [transitive V + unaccusative V] SVC transiting into predicate-complement V-V (change-of-state)); (b) partial motion verbs degrammaticalised and turned into directional complements (resulting in [unergative V + unaccusative V] SVC transiting into predicate-complement V-V (motion)); and (c) the first verb in [coordinate SVC] receives preverbalisation (giving rise to modifier-predicate V-V).
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Ziyu, Lju. "述补结构与处置式发展关系初探." Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 36, no. 2 (2007): 187–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/19606028-90000170.
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This article investigates the development of verb complement structures and the disposal form in terms of their combination and interaction, from the Six Dynasties to the Qing dynasty. The process of grammaticalization of the disposal form began in the Six Dynasties, developed throughout the Tang and Song Dynasties and gradually took shape during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, finally being completed in the Qing Dynasty. It is suggested that the emergence of the verb complement structure accelerated the process of grammaticalization of the disposal construction in its present form, testified by its frequency in later periods.
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Han, Haiyan. "Effect of Topic-prominent Features of Mandarin Chinese on English Writing." Journal of Language Teaching and Research 10, no. 2 (March 1, 2019): 353. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1002.18.
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Mandarin Chinese features a subject-verb-object word order and lacks grammatical agreement of any sort. It is basically a head-last language with the modifiers preceding the head word. Other prominent grammatical features include serial verb construction, resultative complement and the double nominative constructions. My paper focuses on the role of topic and subject in Mandarin, drawing on three views on Chinese syntactic structures, namely, SVO approach, topic-comment approach, and topic-prominence approach. A comparison is made among the different views and a conclusion is drawn that topic-prominent approach may better capture the complexities of Chinese syntax, which definitely contributes to English writing.
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Schönefeld, Doris. "A constructional analysis of English un-participle constructions." Cognitive Linguistics 26, no. 3 (August 1, 2015): 423–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2014-0017.
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AbstractThe present paper reports on an investigation into an English un-participle pattern that is called unpassive, or is described as an adjectival passive. The main characteristic of the pattern is an (adjectival) past participle prefixed by un-, which is used as a predicative complement to a verb. Besides the different terms used for the pattern, there is also some indeterminacy with respect to its particular form. All of the descriptions focus on the verb be, but mention is also made of go and remain. That is, the specifications of the pattern’s formal side differ to some extent. To provide information on this issue and to get hold of potential (verb-related) differences in the pattern’s function, we conducted an empirical analysis from a usage-based construction grammar perspective. Our focus is on the form-function interplay of the pattern in order to gain information about its constructional status and its exact formal and semantic make-up. The database selected for this study is the BNC, from which all occurrences of ‘verb plus un-participle’ were extracted. The data were submitted to collexeme and covarying collexeme analyses to identify the spectrum of meanings/functions associated with these forms, and distinctive collexeme analyses were carried out to see whether the un-participles found pattern differently with the individual verbs. The results indicate that, on closer examination, the un-participle construction does not represent a homogeneous category, but must be seen as a schematic template of related, though different, usage events that may have expanded analogously from a prototype construction. On the basis of our analyses and informed by findings from developmental studies, we suggest that the related constructions form a network.
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Kopeć, Zbigniew. "Towards a Construction Grammar Analysis of English Pseudo-Copular Constructions with Perceptual Impression Verbs." Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Językoznawczego LXXVI, no. 76 (December 31, 2020): 321–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0014.6663.
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Be as a copula in English, traditionally part of the subject-verb-subject complement pattern, syntactically links the subject to a complement and semantically makes little or no contribution of its own to the meaning of the clause. Semi-copulas (e.g. become, grow, turn, remain, etc.) share a number of properties with the be copula, but differ from it in that they cannot be left out without resulting in ungrammaticality or changing the meaning of the construction. They are introduced as the expression of ingressive or continuative aspect. Pseudo-copulas including perceptual impression verbs such as sound, look, taste, smell, and feel do not really link the subject to a complement. Their meanings are evidential and evaluative, based either on the speaker’s sensory modality or reported modality. The author provides descriptions of five pseudo-copular constructions with perceptual impression verbs, based on the Construction Grammar approach, but derives insights and their names from Functional Grammar (Hengeveld 1992) and Word Grammar (Gisborne 2010). Artykuł omawia angielskie konstrukcje z czasownikiem posiłkowym be ‘być’ (ang. copular constructions), konstrukcje z czasownikami częściowo posiłkowymi (ang. semi-copular constructions) oraz konstrukcje z czasownikami pozornie posiłkowymi (ang. pseudo-copular constructions). Czasownik posiłkowy be ‘być’ (ang. copular verb be) pełni funkcję łączącą podmiot z dopełnieniem i posiada nieznaczną wartość semantyczną. Czasowniki częściowo posiłkowe (ang. semi-copular verbs) posiadają kilka wspólnych właściwości z czasownikiem posiłkowym be ‘być’, jednak różnią się od niego tym, że ich opuszczenie skutkuje niepoprawnością gramatyczną. Występują one w aspektach ingresywnym i kontynuatywnym. Analizowane czasowniki pozornie posiłkowe są czasownikami sensorycznymi. Ich znaczenia są znaczeniami modalnymi. Na podstawie doświadczenia pośrednio lub bezpośrednio sensorycznego, użytkownik języka dokonuje oceny wartościującej. Autor proponuje opisy pięciu konstrukcji z sensorycznymi czasownikami pozornie posiłkowymi na podstawie teorii gramatyki konstrukcji, choć swoje rozważania wywodzi z teorii gramatyki funkcjonalnej i teorii gramatyki słowa. Słowa kluczowe: czasownik posiłkowy, czasownik częściowo posiłkowy, czasownik pozornie posiłkowy, czasownik sensoryczny, konstrukcje, modalność epistemiczna, modalność wartościująca
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Borillo, Andrée. "Fonction discursive de la structure d’ “inversion locative”." Ordre des mots et topologie de la phrase française 29, no. 1 (July 6, 2006): 25–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/li.29.1.04bor.
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A locative inversion (LI) sentence is a distinct construction characterized by the presence in clause-initial position of a locative or temporal complement (which is either subcategorized by the verb or operates as an adjunct) followed by the verb itself followed by the subject . The discourse function of such a construction is to establish the spatial or temporal setting of a discourse-new entity (represented by the subject) within the framework of a more general context already presented in a preceding discourse. The verb is there only to provide and denote a specific manifestation of the existence, localisation or state of this entity, but the information it conveys can be often reduced to a minimum (to be, to be found) or even omitted. On the contrary, the subject in clause-final position is assigned a predicate-focus function (“presentational focus”) from which the following discourse is generally bound to develop. In this study, only LI constructions with spatial complements are given a description of their most salient syntactic properties and of their discursive effects.
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Espinal, M. Teresa, and Jaume Mateu. "Manner and result modifiers. The V ben V construction in Catalan." Linguistic Review 35, no. 1 (January 26, 2018): 1–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2017-0016.
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Abstract This paper analyzes the ingredients of a Romance construction, henceforth named the V ben V construction, consisting of a verb and its theme object in combination with a degree adverb ben ‘{well, really}’ followed by a verb in past participle or an adjectival form. It describes the properties and restrictions of the various constituents involved in this construction, and it presents a new analysis focusing on the properties of the main predicate, the theme object, the degree adverb ben and the degree phrase ben+VPP/A. It accounts for the potential manner and result readings of the adjunct constituent that ben introduces (i) by postulating that the ben+VPP/A modifier always predicates of the (sub)event expressed by the verb (an activity or a change of state), (ii) by associating manner with a do verbal layer, and result with a become verbal layer, and (iii) by identifying different aspectual structures in the complement position of the degree adverb.
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Quansheng, Qiao. "UN EMPLOI PARTICULIER DE LA PARTICULE ZHE DANS LE PARLER DE HONGTONG (SHANXI)." Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 17, no. 2 (March 12, 1988): 235–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/19606028-90000304.
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The Hongtong district is located in the Southern part of the Shanxi province. This paper analyzes the different uses of the aspectual particle zhe in the Hongtong dialect, especially those which are different from Contemporary Standard Chinese.The aspectual particle zhe can follow a "Verb + Object" compound in which the object is a noun, an NP, a VP or a "Subject + predicate" construction. A resultative or directional complement can also be inserted between a verb/adjective and the particle zhe. Finally, the verb/adjective preceding zhe can be reduplicated.All these structures were already attested in the vernacular language of the Tang and Song periods.
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Melnikova, Anna. "Aspect as an indicator of a clausal size in Involuntary State Constructions in BCS." Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 6, no. 1 (March 20, 2021): 82. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v6i1.4945.
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Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) has a productive ‘involuntary state construction (ISC) with a modal interpretation. There is an ongoing debate concerning the syntactic complexity of this construction. According to one account – the “mono-clausal analysis”, ISCs have only one (overt) lexical verb, and the modal interpretation stems from the imperfective operator (Rivero and Milojević-Sheppard 2003,Rivero 2009, Tsedryk 2016). There is also a “bi-clausal account” which argues in favor of a covert matrix verb of involuntary disposition feel-like, which takes a clausal ModP complement, giving the modal interpretation (Marušič & Žaucer 2005 [henceforth M&Ž]). In this paper, I provide additional evidence in favor of the bi-clausal approach and in so doing, account for a previously unresolved aspectual restriction on the construction, namely that it is ungrammatical with a perfective lexical verb. The main claim is that the unavailability of perfective in the ISC is due to selectional properties of covert feel-like, which results in the violation of requirements on perfective.
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Hsieh, Chen-Yu Chester, and Lily I-Wen Su. "Construction in conversation." Review of Cognitive Linguistics 17, no. 1 (August 20, 2019): 131–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00029.hsi.
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Abstract Although the Construction Grammar (CxG) model has yielded fruitful findings, the role that pragmatics plays in language has not yet been fully considered in this theoretical framework. The recent development of spoken corpora, however, enables construction grammarians to develop a new approach called Interactional Construction Grammar, which incorporates interactional factors into CxG analysis to account for patterns that involve interpersonal functions and global contexts. Adopting this approach, the present study attempts to examine the use of a complement-taking mental predicate xiangshuo in Taiwan Mandarin conversation and analyze the co-occurrence patterns of this cognitive verb with different subjects. We identify three sequential patterns in which xiangshuo most frequently occurs, including account-giving, contrast-projecting and involvement-constructing, and argue that only by taking into account the sequential context and interactional function can the distribution patterns of subjects and particles that recurrently collocate with xiangshuo be explained.
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Zhang, Niina. "structures of depictive and resultative constructions in Chinese." ZAS Papers in Linguistics 22 (January 1, 2001): 191–221. http://dx.doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.22.2001.107.
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In this paper I firstly argue that secondary predicates are complement of v, and v is overtly realized by Merge or Move in secondary predication in Chinese. The former option derives the de-construction, whereas the latter option derives the V-V construction. Secondly, I argue that resultatives are hosted by complement vPs, whereas depictives are hosted by adjunct vPs. This complement-adjunct asymmetry accounts for a series of syntactic properties of secondary predication in Chinese: the position of a secondary predicate with respect to the verb of the primary predicate, the co-occurrence patterns of secondary predicates, the hierarchy of depictives, the control and ECM properties of resultative constructions, and the locality constraint on the integration of secondary predicates into the structure of primary predication. Thirdly, I argue that the surface position of de is derived by a PF operation which attaches de to the right of the leftmost verbal lexical head of the construction. Finally, I argue that in the V-V resultative construction, the assumed successive head-raising may account for the possible subject-oriented reading of the resultative predicate, and that the head raising out of the lower vP accounts for the possible non-specific reading of the subject of the resultative predicate.
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Branigan, Phil, and Marguerite MacKenzie. "Altruism, Ā-Movement, and Object Agreement in Innu-aimûn." Linguistic Inquiry 33, no. 3 (July 2002): 385–407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/002438902760168545.
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This article examines the syntactic properties of a long-distanceagreement construction in Innu-aimûn (Algonquian)in which a matrix verb may agree with an argument in its complement clause, normally with an associated topic interpretation for the DP target of agreement. It is shown that this is true cross-clausal agreement into a finite complement, rather than agreement with a prothetic object or exceptional Case marking. The topic interpretation effect is shown to reflect a (covert) Ā-movement that produces a complement clause with an accessible target for agreement at the left periphery.
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Paul, Ileana. "Existentials and Partitives in Malagasy." Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 43, no. 3-4 (December 1998): 377–409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008413100024531.
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AbstractThis article discusses the existential construction in Malagasy, focussing on the distribution and interpretation of nominals. It is argued that the existential construction involves the raising of specific NPs out of the small clause complement of the existential verb misy. Nonspecific NPs, on the other hand, are shown to remain within the complement. That raising correlates with interpretation provides evidence in favour of the Mapping Hypothesis of Diesing (1992). Although the syntactic analysis accounts for the specific/nonspecific distribution in the existential construction, it leaves unexplained the precise interpretation of the specific NP, which may be either partitive, possessive, or locative. This article therefore argues for a relation, PARTITIVE, which unites these three readings.
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Luraghi, Silvia. "From verb to New Event Marker." Studies in Language 44, no. 4 (August 25, 2020): 788–811. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sl.20004.lur.
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Abstract In Hittite, deictic motion verbs pai- ‘go’ and uwa- ‘come’ may co-occur in a monoclausal structure with a second verb that carries the lexical meaning. As yet, their exact function remains obscure. I argue that motion verbs involved in such construction underwent transcategorization and function as New Event Markers. I show that this development is best explained as an instance of constructionalization involving both the motion verbs and the second verb in the clause, which is based on a pragmatic inference arising when motion verbs were used without a spatial complement. Either motion verb contributes a different semantics to the construction based on the different perspective regarding the deictic center identified by the ego, whereby pai- ‘go’ (motion originating from the deictic center) marks an event as close in time and controlled, while uwa- ‘come’ (motion originating outside the deictic center) indicates distance in time and possible lack of control.
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Kalyan,, Siva. "Similarity in linguistic categorization: The importance of necessary properties." Cognitive Linguistics 23, no. 3 (August 28, 2012): 539–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2012-0016.
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AbstractUsage-based models of language propose that the acceptability of an element in a constructional slot is determined by its similarity to attested fillers of that slot (Bybee 2010, ch. 4). However, Ambridge and Goldberg (2008) find that the acceptability of a long-distance-dependency (LDD) question does not correlate with the judged similarity of the matrix verb to think and say, which are by far the most frequently attested fillers of this slot. They propose instead that the acceptability of LDD questions is determined by the degree of fit between the information-structure properties of the matrix verb and those specified by the construction—specifically, the degree to which the matrix verb foregrounds its complement clause. This paper explores the possibility of reconciling this explanation with one based on similarity by suggesting that in this case the relevant aspect of similarity is precisely the verb’s foregrounding of its complement. Evidence for this suggestion comes from psychological research showing that in a categorization task, the similarity of an item to the exemplars of a category is judged primarily with respect to the features common to all category members, as well as from the observation that virtually all attested matrix verbs in LDD questions strongly tend to foreground their complements.
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Raflis, Raflis, and Arozato Lase. "An Analysis of The English Gerund as Subject, Direct Object, Subject Complemet, and Object of Preposition." Jurnal Ilmiah Langue and Parole 1, no. 2 (September 18, 2018): 60–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.36057/jilp.v1i2.161.
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The problem in this journal is gerund, verbal ending -ing and serves as a noun. Gerund differs from grammar construction in English because it is able to convert a verb into a noun by adding -ing at the end of the verb. At the same time, there is also a continuous tense form that adds -ing at the end of the verb. For students who start learning English will be confused with the form -ing that can be a noun and also a verb in the same sentence.
The method used is the method of distribution, the method of data analysis into object analysis is part of the language itself. Objects in the distribution method are always part or element of the language being observed. In analyzing the data, the authors use qualitative methods. Qualitative research is a type of social science research that collects and works with non-numerical data and which seeks to interpret the meaning of the data being analyzed. In this study, researchers used descriptive design with the aim to analyze gerund as subject, direct object, complement of subject, and object of preposition at Tempo magazine in 2015.
The author finds gerund formulation as follows: Gerund as Subject (Main + Main Verb + Complement), gerund as Direct Object (Subject + Main Verb + Gerund), gerund as Subject Complement (Subject + to be + Gerund), and gerund as Object of Preposition (Subject + Primary Keyword + Preposition + Gerund). The study found that Tempo magazine used gerund in magazines with higher gerund percentages as the preposition object. There are 8 gerunds as the subject, 5 gerund as a direct object, 6 gerund as complementary subject, and 23 gerund as the preposition object.
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Fruehwald, Josef, and Neil Myler. "I’m done my homework—Case assignment in a stative passive." Linguistic Variation 15, no. 2 (December 31, 2015): 141–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lv.15.2.01fru.
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We present an analysis of an understudied construction found in Philadelphian and Canadian English, and also in certain Vermont varieties. In this construction, the participle of certain verbs can appear along with a form of the verb be and a DP complement, producing strings like I’m done my homework, I’m finished my fries, and (in Vermont) I’m started the project. We show that the participle in the construction is an adjectival passive, not a perfect construction. We further argue that the internal argument DP in the construction is receiving Case from the adjectival head a, similar to what happens in all English dialects with the adjective worth, and that the internal argument is interpreted via a mechanism of complement coercion. The microparametric variation we find across English dialects with respect to the availability of this construction is accounted for by variation in the selectional restrictions on the a head.
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Fanego, Teresa. "On the History of the English Progressive Construction Jane came whistling down the street." Journal of English Linguistics 48, no. 4 (August 10, 2020): 319–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0075424220945008.
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This article examines the historical development of the VV ingOBL construction, as exemplified by “Jane came whistling down the street” or “She went walking up the field path,” where an intransitive motion verb is followed by a present participle and an oblique complement. The analysis looks at the precursors of the construction since Old English and argues that the sharp rise in productivity of the VV ingOBL construction, especially from the second half of the nineteenth century, is interrelated with changes affecting English motion vocabulary in Early and Late Modern English and also the increase in frequency of the be progressive over the same period. By the twentieth century, the VV ingOBL construction had settled into its modern form, namely a deictic-directional construction with either come or go in the V slot. The article also considers indices of the advancing grammaticalization of the construction. It concludes by discussing whether its morphosyntactic and semantic properties support considering it as a serial verb construction, a hypothesis briefly raised in work by Goldberg (2006:52).
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Lauwers, Peter. "Répondre présent/absent." Revue Romane / Langue et littérature. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures 54, no. 2 (February 14, 2018): 278–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/rro.16018.lau.
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Résumé This paper offers a diachronic analysis of a pair of subject complement constructions (répondre présent/absent: litt. ‘to answer “present”/“absent”) originating from quotative expressions. It shows how they lexicalized into fixed expressions denoting a routinized “delocutive” (Benveniste) procedure and how they finally got reanalyzed into a subject complement construction with an internalized projective and proactive meaning (“to act as expected”). The latter appears to be the result of the pragmatic strengthening of conversational implicatures related to the speech act. Further, it is argued that the remarkably similar evolution of répondre absent is due to analogization. Finally, the discussion of potential further host class expansion leads to a provisional answer to the question of whether or not these developments could be the symptoms of the constructionalization of a new copular verb.
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Rosemeyer, Malte, and Eitan Grossman. "The road to auxiliariness revisited." Diachronica 34, no. 4 (December 31, 2017): 516–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/dia.16024.ros.
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Abstract Auxiliary verbs are known to grammaticalize from lexical verbs, but how do lexical verbs acquire verbal complements to begin with? This article provides an account of the semantic and pragmatic basis of grammaticalization of the Spanish anterior (‘perfect’) [acabar + de + infinitive] from a lexical source construction meaning finish. Based on a description of finish in terms of its qualia structure, we argue that verbs meaning finish are lexically unsaturated, with an event variable that must be assigned a value, whether implicitly by inference or explicitly by a verbal complement. We show on the basis of historical corpus data from the 13th–18th centuries that overt lexical verb complements are initially motivated by informativity: the infinitive is used to describe the event when the type of event is unexpected. However, this original constructional meaning is eventually lost due to the process of overtification, which has not been discussed in the literature on language change. Writers started using the infinitive in contexts in which the finished event is not unexpected. The subsequent development of the temporal meaning is motivated by the failure of listeners to accommodate too-costly presuppositions in a particular syntactic context, leading to the reanalysis of the constructional meaning. Consequently, overtification was a necessary condition for the subsequent temporalization of the construction. These findings shed light on possible reasons for the grammaticalization of auxiliary verb constructions, at both early and later stages in their developmental histories.
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Speyer, Augustin. "AcI and control infinitives: How different are they?" Journal of Historical Linguistics 5, no. 1 (August 28, 2015): 41–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jhl.5.1.02spe.
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In German, there are two infinitive constructions for complement infinitives, the accusativus cum infinitivo (AcI) and the object control infinitive construction (OCIC). Both constructions have nearly identical structures, where the logical subject of the infinitive is a distinct constituent from the rest of the infinitival clause, although in Modern German they show differences in form: the AcI is coherent and governs the bare infinitive, while the OCIC is incoherent and governs the zu-infinitive. It can be shown that these differences only developed over time and are reflexes of semantic differences between the constructions rather than of structural differences. Superficial binding differences that suggest a structural difference follow instead from the structures of the involved verb phrases.
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Xu, Yuting. "A Cognitive Linguistic Study of Verb-copying Sentences in Mandarin Chinese." Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal 7, no. 4 (April 24, 2020): 164–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.74.8087.
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This study concerns the verb-copying structure “S+V+Object+V+Resultative” in Chinese from the perspective of cognitive grammar. It views the construction as composited from component structure “S+V+Object” and “V+Resultative” and reveals the compositional path and mental representation of this construction. The results indicate that component SVO elaborates the schematic trajector of V in Component VR. This conceptual correspondence lays the foundation for the integration of component SVO and VR, which constitutes the internal motivation of SVOVR construction. Component SVO serves as the cognitive reference point for the conceptualization. The elements in the dominion of action that SVO designates are extracted as conceptualization target. SVOVR construction is organized in the pattern of Baseline and Elaboration. In local terms, each stratum provides the potential for the next and the conceptualization result - the linear structure - is completed in a cumulative fashion. In global terms, component SVO and VR serve as dual baseline whose mutual elaboration yields a composite structure of greater complexity. SVOVR construction imposes some restrictions on the repeated verb. The verb needs to designate the actions that can be repeated and continued. Structure One cannot have any tense or the aspect markers. SVOVR construction does not stand in isolation from other units in linguistic system; it is categorized by the conventionalized SVO structure and predicate-complement VR structure in Chinese language system, which is the external motivation for this construction.
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Caers, Wim, and Sune Gregersen. "Wat mutt, dat mutt* : ‘Independent’ modals in West Germanic vernaculars." Nederlandse Taalkunde 24, no. 3 (November 1, 2019): 399–417. http://dx.doi.org/10.5117/nedtaa2019.3.005.caer.
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Abstract The squib investigates the dialectal distribution of the Dutch construction type het kan/mag/moet, lit. ‘it can/may/must’, where a modal verb occurs ‘independently’ with an eventive subject and no infinitival complement. The construction is shown to be widely attested not only in traditional dialects of Dutch, but also in Frisian, Low German, and Afrikaans. We suggest that the construction, which does not occur in standard German or English, is an areal feature shared by the West Germanic vernaculars of northwestern Germany and the Low Countries, including the South African ‘side branch’ Afrikaans.
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Mikulskas, Rolandas. "Descriptive problems in defining the category of copulas: syntactic and semantic distribution of the ingressive copulas VIRSTI and TAPTI." Lietuvių kalba, no. 12 (December 15, 2018): 1–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/lk.2018.22519.
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Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1991) allows for a unified account of copular constructions. In this framework, all types of copular constructions can be seen as the different instantiations of a single archetype of statements of identity between two entities (Mikulskas 2017). Radical Construction Grammar, the framework adopted in this article, also allows for a unified account of copular verbs, as it views both so-called ‘semi-copulas’ and typical copulas as members of a single category of copulas as long as each of them fills the same slot between the thematic argument and the predicative complement in a copular construction. According to Radical Construction Grammar, an independent word class ‘copula’ does not exist. “Instead, verbs in a particular language can be labelled ‘copular’ if they have the appropriate semantics and morphosyntax to fit in the so-called ‘copular slot’ of a copular construction” (Petré 2012: 30). From this theoretical perspective, the term ‘copula’ applies only derivatively. Thus, syntactically, copular verbs have a linking function. Additionally, some of them express various aspectual meanings and can be seen as aspectual variants of the typical copula “be”. For instance, the Lithuanian verbs tapti ‘become’, virsti ‘turn into’, darytis/pasidaryti ‘become’ (lit. ‘make oneself’) and, formerly, stotis/pastoti ‘become’ (lit. ‘stand up’), mainly in the Simple Past and Future tenses, when used in copular constructions, express ingressive aspect of the change event. These verbs, used in different constructions, such as existential, locomotional etc., retain their original meaning. Importantly, even when they are used in copular constructions, while being first of all linking verbs and aspectual markers, they can still have different syntactic and semantic properties. The latter are the outcome of their primary meanings inherited from their source constructions (‘backward pull’; Traugott 2008). That said, it is nevertheless clear that each of these verbs is in a different stage on its way to grammaticalization and each accommodated to copular function in a varying degree. So, a descriptivist encounters a practical problem: which of the above-mentioned verbal lexemes qualify as ‘real’ copulas and which do not? Are such verbs as augti ‘grow’ or eiti ‘go’, which can perform copular function in certain restricted contexts, on a par with more typical copulas such as tapti or virsti? Some Lithuanian researchers even doubt if the verb lexeme virsti can be labelled ‘copular’. To provide for this descriptive need a definition of the category of copulas is elaborated in the first two chapters of the article. Complementing the constructional requirement of filling the slot between the thematic argument and the predicative complement, two additional criteria are suggested. First, the postcopular nominal, as the result of reanalysis of the source construction in the course of grammaticalization, must become coreferential with the subject nominal. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition, as it does not differentiate between primary and secondary predicatives. Secondly, the types of complement of the verb must be unpredictable from its semantics or, in other words, the copular verb must be desemanticized to a sufficient degree to be capable of selecting its complements from a wide array of semantic and syntactic types (that is, NP, ADJ, PP). So the question whether to include a concrete verb lexeme into the class of copulas is mainly reduced investigating the semantics of its complements (or the productivity of its complementation). In the second two chapters of the article a contrastive study of the syntactic and semantic properties of the copular verbs virsti vs. tapti is presented in order to prove that the corresponding copular constructions featuring these verbs are different instantiations of the more abstract ingressive-aspect-expressing construction. A quantitative analysis of data in the Corpus of Modern Lithuanian reveals various relevant points in the parallel development and interaction of these verbs and in their coexistence in present-day Lithuanian: how they divide between them the job of expressing ingressive aspect in the profiled change events while at the same time competing with each other in some contexts. Additionally, some relevant facts of the usage of the copulas under discussion were checked in the Old Lithuanian Corpus and in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. The analysis allows us to draw some important conclusions concerning the coexsistence of the two verbs under discussion and their categorial status in modern Lithuanian. First of all, the verb virsti can reasonably be seen as an aspectual variety of the copula būti ‘be’, on a par with the more grammaticalized copula tapti. The verb virsti, when used in copular constructions, is sufficiently desemanticized: one may claim that a sufficient number of copular constructions featuring the verb virsti have nearly lost their touch with their inherent semantics. More specifically, half of the analysed cases of copular constructions with this verb have already abandoned their tendency – inherited from the locomotional source construction (designating the overturning of a vertical object ) – to denote negatively evaluated change events. Though the verb virsti was originally used mainly in the inclusive type of copular constructions, it is now, on the analogy of copular constructions featuring the verb tapti, increasingly used in the ascriptive type as well: in more than 4% of the analysed instances the copula virsti selects adjectival predicative complements. Sporadically, the copula virsti is attested even in the specificational type of copular constructions (in this type of sentences the usage of the copula tapti is unrestricted). Also in modern Lithuanian the copula virsti has borrowed from the copular constructions featuring tapti the morphosyntactic coding of its complements by the instrumental instead of the original coding with PP. A thorough study of the semantic distribution of the copulas virsti and tapti in the Corpus of Modern Lithuanian shows that they have more or less divided between them the semantic space of aspectual expression according to the meanings they have inherited from their source constructions, and to their resulting aspectual potential. The constructions containing the copula virsti profile, in most cases, a radical transformation of a subject referent proceeding in an uncontrolled and incremental way. Such transformations include changes of physical elements, changes in a person’s mood and character, or spell-induced changes in fairy tales. Aspectually, such copular constructions have the profile of an accomplishment. Conversely, the constructions featuring the copula tapti presuppose a subject referent in control of the profiled change event. The result of the change is usually a new social status, a new profession or office held by the subject referent. In some cases the change profiled is only a projection of some relevant features of the subject referent into the cognitive domain of some speech community: the subject referent of the sentence, because of its social behaviour or personal features, is declared by the speaker to be a model or a guide for other people. The aspectual profile of such constructions is typically that of an achievement as in most cases they designate an instantaneous ingression of the subject referent into its new status. Nevertheless, the quantitative analysis of the corpus data shows that in about 13% of the copular constructions analysed the preterite verbal forms virto and tapo can be used interchangeably. This fact, considered together with the empirically attested facts of mutual interaction of the corresponding copular constructions, allows us to treat the constructions featuring these copular forms as two different instantiations of a single copular construction expressing the ingressive aspect of the profiled change event.
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van Trijp, Remi. "How a Construction Grammar account solves the auxiliary controversy." Constructions and Frames 9, no. 2 (December 30, 2017): 251–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cf.00004.van.
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Abstract The English auxiliaries have been a matter of dispute for decades with two opposing views: one analysis treats them as main verbs that take a VP complement; the other considers them as feature carriers. Proponents of both approaches have convincingly pointed out each other’s weaknesses without however settling the debate and without accounting for the fact that the English VP is still evolving today. The goal of this paper is to show that Construction Grammar offers a way out of the current status quo. This claim is substantiated by a computational formalization of the English verb phrase in Fluid Construction Grammar that includes a bi-directional processing model for formulation and comprehension available for online testing.
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Furukawa, Naoyo. "Sylvie a Les Yeux Bleus." Lingvisticæ Investigationes. International Journal of Linguistics and Language Resources 11, no. 2 (January 1, 1987): 283–302. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/li.11.2.03fur.
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Sylvie a les yeux bleus: bi-thematic construction The purpose of this paper is to describe the syntactic and semantic structures of the construction Sylvie a les yeux bleus. Traditionally, the verb avoir as taken in this construction is said to relate, syntactically, the NP les yeux with the adjective bleus, and that it comes under the category of verbs which take or can take a direct object NP and its complement: e.g. rendre, trouver, élire, appeler, etc. By using the ne... que test, we show that the role of avoir is to bring Sylvie and les yeux (but not les yeux and bleus!) into syntactic relation, and that, therefore, the sentence elle a les cheveux longs is syntactically different from the sentence elle porte les cheveux longs, the former being composed of two clauses, the latter of one clause. On the other hand, our semantic analysis shows that the construction Sylvie a les yeux bleus is a bi-thematic construction, the primary theme being Sylvie, the secondary theme les yeux, and that, from this point of view, the constructions j'ai la tête qui tourne and il a sa fille mariée can also be considered as bi-thematic constructions.
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WULFF, STEFANIE, NICHOLAS LESTER, and MARIA T. MARTINEZ-GARCIA. "That-variation in German and Spanish L2 English." Language and Cognition 6, no. 2 (March 20, 2014): 271–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2014.5.
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abstractIn certain English finite complement clauses, inclusion of the complementizer that is optional. Previous research has identified various factors that influence when native speakers tend to produce or omit the complementizer, including syntactic weight, clause juncture constraints, and predicate frequency. The present study addresses the question to what extent German and Spanish learners of English as a second language (L2) produce and omit the complementizer under similar conditions. 3,622 instances of English adjectival, object, and subject complement constructions were retrieved from the International Corpus of English and the German and Spanish components of the International Corpus of Learner English. A logistic regression model suggests that L2 learners’ and natives’ production is largely governed by the same factors. However, in comparison with native speakers, L2 learners display a lower rate of complementizer omission. They are more impacted by processing-related factors such as complexity and clause juncture, and less sensitive to verb-construction cue validity.
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Rech, Núbia. "A formação de construções resultativas no português brasileiro." Cadernos de Estudos Lingüísticos 49, no. 1 (July 15, 2011): 79–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.20396/cel.v49i1.8637248.
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This paper aims mainly at investigating if there is the formation of resultative constructions with simple adjective in Brazilian Portuguese, since researchers disagree on the existence of these constructions in Romance Languages. To start this discussion, first I make a distinction between resultative, depictive and circumstantial constructions. Then, I relate some of their main characteristics, testing how they appear in sentences written in Brazilian Portuguese. Afterwards, I propose an extension of Folli and Ramchand (2001)’s analysis on the Portuguese. These authors use a structure of verb phrase that consists of three different projections, each one consisting in a subpart of the event: Cause, Process and Result. My hypothesis about the Brazilian Portuguese is that the verbs of causative alternation – as they imply change of state – are the head of Result projection and have as their complement an adjective small clause (SC), whose predicate indicates the telic aspect of event, forming a resultative construction. Following this perspective of analysis, I study the possibility of formation of adjective resultatives with atelic and telic verbs that admit causative alternation. I also approach – although briefly – other types of constructions that express results, whose secondary predicates are, respectively, a complex adjective phrase, a PP or a DP. In this paper, only the constructions resulting from verbal actions are considered. Thus, goal of motion constructions – in which prepositions indicate the following of movement and its ending – and resultative constructions with causative verbs are not considered. The results show that there are not resultative constructions in the Brazilian Portuguese equivalent to those found in Germanic Languages, in which an atelic verb becomes a telic verb by adding a resultative secondary predicate to the sentence.
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Pak, Miok D. "Syntax and Morphology of Temporal-Aspectual Constructions in Korean." Korean Linguistics 12 (January 1, 2004): 55–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/kl.12.03mdp.
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Abstract. Verbal nouns in Korean exhibit properties of both nouns and verbs in that they assign both verbal and nominal cases to the arguments. Such mixed categorial behavior of verbal nouns is manifest only in certain environments, namely in the complement position of ha (a so-called light verb in Korean) and in the complement position of aspectual morphemes such as cwung 'during', cen 'before', and hwu 'after. Due to their mixed properties, the categorial status of verbal nouns in these environments has long been an issue of debate. This paper mainly discusses temporal-aspectual constructions, and proposes that they can be distinguished into three types, Types A, B, and C. Each type of temporal-aspectual construction has a different morpho-syntactic structure. The paper further claims that verbal nouns are inherently unspecified for their grammatical category (following Alexiadou 1997, 1998, Halle and Marantz 1993, and van Hout and Roeper 1998 among others), and different morpho-syntactic structures trigger different categorial status of verbal nouns in these environments. The complex categorial behavior of verbal nouns in temporal-aspectual constructions, then, is not only explained under the analysis proposed in this paper but is also expected.
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Herriman, Jennifer. "Existential constructions in English and Swedish." Languages in Contrast 12, no. 2 (October 29, 2012): 165–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lic.12.2.03her.
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Existential constructions introduce newsworthy information into the discourse by placing it in a position of prominence late in the message, in the Rheme. This study compares existential constructions in a sample of English and Swedish source texts and their translations in the English Swedish Parallel Corpus. The Swedish sample contains a slightly higher number of existential constructions. About two thirds are translated into or from existential constructions in the other language. The remaining correspondences differ somewhat in terms of where they place the newsworthy content presented by the notional subject in the existential construction. In English, this is often placed in the Theme. In Swedish, in contrast, this is usually avoided, either by fronting another clause element or by realizing the content as a complement or verb, which is placed in the Rheme. These findings provide further empirical evidence for the claim that Swedish follows the information principle more closely than English.
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Hu, Bo, and Hong Chen. "On the Raising and Control of Modal Auxiliary Verbs." International Journal of Linguistics 12, no. 4 (August 27, 2020): 252. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v12i4.17595.
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Modal auxiliary verbs are a type of verb that expresses the speaker’s attitude and opinion towards a proposition or an event. This paper investigates the syntactic features of modal auxiliary verbs in different languages from the aspects of semantic constraints, the deletion of complement clauses, constituent movement, pseudo-cleft construction and temporal and aspect markers, and analyzes relevant hypotheses of modal auxiliary verbs under the framework of generative grammar. We challenge the assumption that modal verbs are raising verbs, argue that modal auxiliary verbs should be analyzed as raising or control verbs.
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Hsiao, Hui-Chen Sabrina. "Conceptual Manipulation and Semantic Distinctions in Mandarin Verb Complements: The Contrast between shàng and dào." Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 30, no. 1 (June 25, 2004): 160. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/bls.v30i1.928.
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This study investigates the lexicalization of spatial and aspectual components incorporated in Mandarin verb complements (VCs hereafter) shàng ‘up’ and dào ‘arrive’. The verb complement in Mandarin is well-known as the second verbal element in VV construction. Traditionally, V-shàng and V-dào are categorized as ‘directional complements’ and ‘phase complements’ respectively (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981). Both VCs shàng and dào, originally functioning as a main verb (Gao 1995), are similar to the counterpart ‘up/on/above/over’ and ‘arrive/ reach’ in English; they have various usages, such as in verb phrases, and prepositional phrases, for example. Although there is no doubt that shàng and dào are poly-functional, it seems that there is no agreement on to what extent particular uses are related to one another. Most of the previous studies focus on the spatial meanings lexicalized in noun phrases and postpositions; they provide explanations based on a metaphorical approach or cultural values. However, such accounts cannot entirely explain the main function of the post-verbal comple- ments shàng and dào in VV construction. In this paper, I explore the subtle distinctions between the satellites shàng and dào, and provide an explanatory account for their seemingly diverse functions from a cognitive approach. Moreover, this paper aims to offer another perspective on the conceptual properties of spatial and aspectual notions embodied in these two verb complements, and verify evidence that Mandarin treats five framing events as a single conceptual entity. The organization of this paper is as follows. A brief literature review and the theoretical framework are presented in section 1. In section 2, the data involved the verb complements shàng and dào are introduced. In section 3, based on Talmy’s (2000) framework and framing event types, I discuss several examples and account for how aspectual and spatial concepts are explicitly expressed in shàng and dào regarding different framing event types. Section 4 shows a summary of findings and conclusion.